Q&A: Passover, Matzah, and Maror
Passover, Matzah, and Maror
Question
Hello, honorable Rabbi. There is the dispute between Hillel and the Sages regarding the manner of eating the maror: whether one should wrap the maror together with the matzah and the Passover offering and eat them all together, or whether the verse only teaches the time for eating the matzah and maror—that they should be eaten at the time when the Passover offering is eaten. I wanted to ask whether, in their view—both Hillel’s and the Sages’—aside from the commandment of eating matzah learned from the verse, “In the evening you shall eat matzot,” there is in addition a commandment to eat matzah, when there is an offering, from the verse, “Roasted in fire, and with matzot and bitter herbs they shall eat it,” or whether the second verse refers to the matzah regarding which we are commanded in the first verse. And according to the view that these are two different commandments, during the time of the Temple could one fulfill both obligations by eating one olive-bulk of matzah, both according to the Sages and according to Hillel, or would one have to eat an olive-bulk for each one?
Thank you very much, and have a happy Passover holiday!
Answer
I’m not sure I understood the question.
There is a separate commandment to eat matzah. Maimonides counts two commandments: to eat the Passover offering, matzah, and maror, and to eat matzah. Can one fulfill the obligation through eating it together with the Passover offering? I do not think so, because the taste of the Passover offering nullifies the taste of the matzah, and also because we do not bundle commandments together.
See here, in Rabbi Shilat, a more detailed discussion of this: http://www.ybm.org.il/Admin/uploaddata/LessonsFiles/Pdf/17951.pdf